The Cold Still

The boxer rebellion is starting to make themselves a name in France due to touring and a great spotlight provided By Zegut.
Here a link from their radio sessions.
Their new album the cold still is on sale right now.

http://www.rtl2.fr/emission/session/poprockstation/acoustiques/7661335741/the-boxer-rebellion.html

Amanethes

Here a note to talk about the last audio that went through my ipod, Tiamat last release Amanethes.
Let's do a roll call of the track list.

1. The Temple of the Crescent Moon
Typical goth rock from Tiamat, loud, big voice (but not death) small female participation, lyrics that go with the usual devil / god kinda of lyrics.

2. Equinox of the Gods
This one is more heavy, more devillish than the opener, nice tune.

3. Until the Hellhounds Sleep Again
My personnal favorite, we go into the calm side of Tiamat with a great use of the bells and a great chorus.

4. Will They Come?
Another calm one with a nice heated chorus and nice lyrics.

5. Lucienne
damn after lucy now lucienne, typical and not very inspired Tiamat again here.

6. Summertime is Gone
7. Katarraktis Apo Aima
These too come as a pair. First is the bluesy with great orchestration using strings that leads into a rasping coda, definitly one of the highlight of the album.

8. Raining Dead Angels
This one is the heaviest, most satanic, great for a wrestler heel entry song of the album.

9. Misantropolis
Back to the calm and fragile side of Tiamat again with a nice song with again the nice concept in the lyrics.

10. Amanitis
Wonderful aphasic song leaning toward the greece (where I think the singer now lives)

11. Meliae
The Faux-pas of the album. A uninspired pop song of love straight from the 90ies. Amazing piece of work in itself but kills the flow and mood of the album.

12. Via Dolorosa
Ahhhh good old heavy satanic song back again... feels good. Another Highlight here.

13. Circles
14. Amanes
The last songs sadly tend to end the album not in a very powerful way and are easily forgotten.

15. Thirstsnake
Bonus song that should have caught Meliae's place.


A good album very typical of Tiamat range with a great first two third before being a bit killed by an out of place song , leaving a song left to remember.

http://www.churchoftiamat.com/

Remedy Lane

Next stop for the Pain of Salvation marathon : Remedy Lane.
As usual, a strong concept, much more biographic than before runs throughout this album.
Remedy Lane is about love, lost, relationship and feelings around these sentiments.
It's about everything from falling in love, being betrayed, losing a child, not coping with sentiments and life.
As usual the music is very much a work of art, rythms, little riffs, syncopic guitars and vocals, drums and bass. Every piece of music has its own soul.
The album though less metal than the previous, has its share of slow and sad songs and other very powerful.
This one has it all. every song is great, the concept is strong (though as usual not very joyful) My favorite album, quite perfect in every aspect (even the ugly 3D stuff made by I-do-everything-myself-Daniel Gildenlöw.

Very much worth owning.

6 years ago...in mémoriam Will Eisner

The Perfect Element

Again and again continuing the pain of salvation marathon with the break-through album The perfect element part 1.

Again, a strong concept at first, the lives of two children (one male one female) who have been abused as children and how they meet and deal with thisn as dysfunctional people.
So of course it is not a very joyful concept and the music, where PoS finally gets its style as a syncopic, multi vocal progressive metal, really helps gets in the mood of the heavy oriented and numerous lyrics that course through the (as usual) beautifully design booklet. (I must stress that the physical CD is as much part of the concept as the rest of the lyrics and music-all supervised by Daniel Gildenlöw)

The album as a strong debut with the songs used, in the flesh and of course ever favorite dark and gloomy ashes before hitting a small ventre-mou in the middle of the album before the dark finale.
Even if all the songs are not up to the standard of the blessed trilogy that starts the record, the overall quality of the album made it possible to PoS to finally break and get known to -if not the world- at least the progressive and metal music world, what some in the old days could have called a chef d'oeuvre. Maybe not as perfect as the said element but really of notice.

Definitly worth checking out.

One Hour By the Concrete Lake

Continuing the pain of salvation extravaganza, with their second album, the also conceptual One Hour by the Concrete Lake.



First as always the concept : A man working in a weapon factory starts questionning the impact of his work (duh) on the world, travels and sees the disaster made by his guns and the big machine (industrial capitalism as its best) on his fellow men and the nature, ending his trip by the lake Karachay, a nuclear dump that was sealed with concrete and which is one of the most radioactive place on earth... one hour by it and a adult get a lethal dose of radiation....

Musically, with the arrival of johann Hallgren, PoS continue its venture in prog metal but in a less metal way with many syncopic rythms and voice modulations, chorus, chants and such. Daniel Gildenlow makes even the band sounds a bit like Enchant on some tracks and the album flows seamslessy but without a lot of high peaks.

Through its theme and music, 1HbtCL is still an album coming out of youth. the theme is mature yet as a lot of naïveté in it and the music still is searching itself a bit... no wonder the breakthrough would be made with teh next one...but yet a nice album with a strong human and ecological concept that helps define the concerns of the band leader.

Nightmist

Started a retrospective Pain of salvation after seeing them live for their last effort Road Salt 1.
So I started with the debut concept album Entropia (short for entropy and utopia mind you)
Great debut album of metal prog with the great voice of Daniel.
The story is about war and family, soldiers fighting for a lifestyle and of course death.
teh first chapters are very powerful but even if the songs are not bad arriving at the stress track the concept and quality sadly loses a bit of its strenght, barely getting back until the coda which close the story.
Great first debut with nice songs on the first chapter and many songs that will reach their potentials on the acoustic rework album 12.5.
Great catchy melodies on a bit of obscur concept that lay the path for the rest of the discography hopefully coming soon (as soon as I muster the strenght and have my 30+ listening of next album of course)